WWWF: Championship Wrestling
October 29, 1977
Philadelphia, PA
Philadelphia Arena

Your current WWWF champions are as follows:
WWWF Heavyweight Champion: Superstar Billy Graham (4/30/1977)
WWWF World Tag Team Champions: Mr. Fuji & Professor Toru Tanaka (9/27/1977)

Pop Culture #1s:
#1 Movie of the Week: Julia starring Jane Fonda
#1 Song of the Week: You Light Up My Life by Debby Boone
#1 TV Show of 77-78 Season: Laverne & Shirley starring Penny Marshall & Cindy Williams

SIDEBAR: Looks like female oppression has ended in the entertainment industry. FEMINISM HAS WON~!

Your host is Vince McMahon.

• Dusty Rhodes vs. Joe Turco
  

Here is Dusty in all his charismatic glory. He grabs a wristlock and elbow smashes the arm. Of course he’s slimmer than he is the 1980s, he’s still no Adonis here with those giggly chesticles. A back elbow and a BIONIC ELBOW scores the win for Rhodes in 3:06. Can’t believe there’s no interview with Dusty afterwards. That’s disappointing.

• Butcher Vachon (w/Captain Lou Albano) vs. Steve King
  

In case you didn’t know, Butcher Vachon is the father of Luna Vachon and brother of Mad Dog Vachon. Lots of punishment on the facial area as Vince would call it. He chokes King in the ropes and even Albano gets a squeeze on this guy. A running splash though ends King at 4:35.

• Dewey Robertson vs. Sylvano Sousa
  

This is the WWWF TV debut of Robertson. He’s doing a Canadian athlete gimmick here, but he’s best known as the Missing Link. He frustrates Sousa to start as you can hear the crowd making fun of Sousa. Robertson wins with the Abdominal Stretch at 3:06.

• Bob Backlund vs. Pete Reeves
  

Pete Reeves won’t shake Backlund’s hand and the crowd doesn’t like that one bit. Backlund takes that left arm and tries to tear it off. Reeves fight out, eats a dropkick, takes a backdrop, and then receives the ATOMIC DROP as Backlund gets the pinfall in 4:52.

Vince McMahon interviews the Grand Wizard about the Manager of the Year contest. He’s trailing behind Arnold Skaaland – the manager of Bruno Sammartino – right now. Wizard finds that ridiculous since he was the manager of Stan Stasiak (former WWWF champion) and the manager of the current WWWF champion Superstar Billy Graham. He thinks he shouldn’t just be the Manager of the Year, but also Manager of the Generation because he is the manager of champions. Vince and Wizard disagree who on the greatest WWWF champion of all-time is. Wizard wraps up saying he has less respect for Arnold Skaaland than any other man. Wowww.

• Larry Sharpe & Jack Evans vs. Johnny Rivera & Pete Austin
  

Not that Jack Evans, obviously. Evans and Sharpe doing a heel pretty boy gimmick. You may know Larry Sharpe more as a trainer than a wrestler since he’s trained a bunch of big names from his Monster Factory in New Jersey. Those include Bam Bam Bigelow, King Kong Bundy, Raven, the Big Show, D’Lo Brown, the Headbangers, Sheamus, and many others. They control Austin with headlocks to start. There’s one backdrop on Austin, but Austin counters a second one with a sunset flip. Rivera finally gets a tag and nails Evans and Sharpe with a few licks. Evans and Sharpe double-team Rivera to take control. They let Austin tag in and it’s Katie bar the door now. Sharpe slams Rivera down for a BOMBS AWAY by Evans to get the pinfall at 6:46.

• High Chief Peter Maivia & Chief Jay Strongbow vs. Baron Mikel Scicluna & Moose Monroe
  

Maivia has his forehead bandaged due to an altercation with Superstar Billy Graham. Vince says we’ll have more details on that situation in the weeks to come. Maivia has the heels running scared to start until Scicluna jabs Maivia with his foreign object. VINTAGE SCICLUNA~! Tag to Strongbow, the same thing happens to him. Since Scicluna won’t stop cheating, Maivia and Strongbow attack him together. Monroe tags in and gets punched down by Strongbow and Maivia using Scicluna’s foreign object. Ahh, McMahon babyface logic. It’s dastardly when the heels cheat, but hilarious when the babyfaces cheat. It’s the old “eye for an eye” logic. This type of thing continues on for a while. Eventually, Maivia gets the hot tag and nails Monroe with the crossbody block for the win at 5:10.

That’s all of the WWWF Championship Wrestling episodes I have from 1977. I have three episodes from 1978 that I will be posting by Friday. These episodes will include Mr. Fuji & Professor Tanaka, Spiros Arion, Bob Backlund, Mil Mascaras, the WWWF TV debut of Dino Bravo, Ivan Koloff, and Andre the Giant!

Until next time, so long for now.